ITP – PDSA’s Annual Conference and Reiki

“The Healing Power of Reiki” – Pamir Kiciman, BA, RM, CHt

An overlooked aspect of health is a sense of wellness despite symptoms. Even with an ongoing condition, it’s possible to be functional and happy in daily living. Every person has a set of principles, a foundation to live by, which brings meaning and purpose to life. Sometimes this foundation becomes a little shaky. Reiki is a way of living that brings back a sense of peace with oneself and harmony with one’s surroundings. It provides wisdom in here-and-now difficulties and is a resource of empowerment in one’s responses to challenges. Life is full of questions and many of the answers are available without having to go outside an individual’s own scope. Reiki is a teaching that accesses innate wisdom and intelligence, as well as compassion, which propel a vision of one’s potential. We will explore how this bedrock is part of the human experience and how it’s always accessible, as well as how to keep the access open during challenging times.

The above is the synopsis of the presentation I gave at the Platelet Disorder Support Association’s (PDSA) annual conference this year.

PDSA was founded by Joan Young to tell others about ITP.

“ITP, idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, also known as immune thrombocytopenic purpura, is classified as an autoimmune disease. In an autoimmune disease the body mounts an attack toward one or more otherwise normal organ systems. In ITP, platelets are the target. They are marked as foreign by the immune system and eliminated in the spleen, or sometimes the liver. Because this process removes platelets from circulation, people with ITP have a low platelet count or thrombocytopenia.” (PDSA website.)

“Idiopathic” means having no known cause.

Joan was one of the beautiful people I met at the conference, and she is a Reiki practitioner. Reiki was one of her choices in returning to wellness literally from the brink and staying there.

A healthy platelet count ranges between 150,000–400,000. During the course of the weekend I met wonderful people who have a platelet count of 30,000–50,000.

“About 30,000 platelets per microliter of blood is considered a ‘safe count,’ one that is high enough to protect against bleeding in the brain in most cases.” (PDSA website.)

However, I also heard story after story where counts crash and people literally have to be “rescued.”

I met one lady in her sixties who, as far she knows, has been living with ITP since the age of thirteen and her count is 6000–8000 in all those years. She has refused any of the available conventional, medical treatments.

Another person who has also refused treatment and has used homeopathy in six years of living with ITP, ranges between 19,000–22,000 platelets.

Many do accept the available medical treatments and experience varying degrees of success.

One of the points I made in my presentation was to not become a diagnosis, a platelet count, so I don’t want to keep listing numbers except to illustrate that the cause of ITP is unknown, as is its cure.

This is a daily reality for a girl, age 13, who was still so very happy to have recently acquired a three-wheeled bicycle. Falling, bumping into things, or hard sports are a no-no.

“Most people with ITP experience spontaneous bruising. Some find they have petechiae (pe-TEEK-ee-ay), tiny red dots on the skin caused by broken blood vessels or leaks in a capillary wall. If your platelet count is very low you may have other bleeding symptoms including blood blisters on the inside of your cheeks or blood in your urine or stool. In general, the more bleeding symptoms you have, the lower your platelet count.” (PDSA website.)

All the visible bruising I saw was subdermal and quite large and obvious. Saturday night there was a party and a steel band. One lady I’ve known for some time told me it was about the only place she could wear a sundress and nobody would think her bruises were odd, or draw other wrong conclusions.

Despite knowing her story quite well previously, this revelation really touched me and brought home what it’s like to be living with ITP.

One person who opened up to me after my presentation, had lost a child to ITP and started another support organization that works together with PDSA.

A rare disease is considered to be one that affects fewer than 200,000 Americans.

“The incidence of ITP in children is estimated at 4.3 to 5.3 per 100,000 children per year.Since children with ITP usually recover, the prevalence of childhood ITP is about equal to the incidence. The incidence of adult ITP is from 1.6 4 to 6.6 5 per 100,000 and the prevalence is approximately 9.5 cases per 100,000.” (PDSA website.)

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